MUSIC

Varispeed & Peggy Weil: The Blurring Test

SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2023
8:00 PM

Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

$25 advance; $30 door; $20 students/seniors; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION

As its name suggests, the avant-fun vocal ensemble Varispeed was formed to perform experimental classics (is that an oxymoron?) by people like Robert Ashley. This is their first collaboration on a new piece, making music-theater out of media artist Peggy Weil’s Blurring Test project, which turned turned the Turing Test on its head: instead of asking whether a computer could make people think it was human in conversation, it asked whether people conversing with a chatbot could prove they were human.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, good cocktails and even good food at Grand Army Bar. Streaming at home, have an Enigma: pour 1-1/2 oz. Islay Scotch, 2/3 oz. sweet Vermouth, and 1/4 oz. each of Cherry Heering and yellow Chartreuse, with one dash of Peychaud’s bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Express an orange twist into the drink and plop it in as a garnish.